


When She Braided Her Hair

by ericsonclan



Series: OG World [29]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Hair Braiding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23724343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ericsonclan/pseuds/ericsonclan
Summary: Prisha struggles to adjust to life with only one functioning arm. Violet helps her see that there's still hope.
Relationships: Prisha/Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running)
Series: OG World [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815361
Kudos: 4





	When She Braided Her Hair

**Author's Note:**

> (by Laura)
> 
> Companion piece to Braiding Her Hair, this time from Prisha's perspective.

Prisha sat alone in her dorm room at Ericson’s School for Troubled Youth, trying her hardest to keep perfectly still as she reached with her one good arm to stroke the brush through her hair. Every misplaced twitch had her seizing up in pain, the burning sensation from her shattered arm radiating throughout her entire body. It had already been weeks since the injury, but she was nowhere near recovered. She would never fully recover; she was maimed for life. Prisha gritted her teeth, trying to focus on the task at hand rather than the new grim reality of her condition. She might be an invalid, but she could still have neat hair. She wasn’t letting this injury take away the one part of herself she’d always maintained.

Finally after several minutes of painstaking effort and barely contained gasps of agony, her hair had been thoroughly brushed out. All that remained was to braid it. Prisha reached behind her, groaning in pain as she attempted to pull her hair forward. She started her regular steps, separating the hair into equal portions on her left side, right and her back, then froze as the realization struck her: this wasn’t going to work. This method relied on her approaching the braid from both sides at once with _two_ hands. Prisha felt panic rising within her once more, the same she had felt at Ruby’s words as she informed her of what had happened to her arm. The same she experienced as she watched Dana and Marie be taken away while the rest of her group bled to death on the cliffside.

 _No. Don’t let yourself go back there._ She would find a new way to braid her hair. Standing up, Prisha walked over to where she’d laid the brush on the desk. Perhaps she could use it as some sort of placeholder, a bookmark while she shifted her good arm to the next position. This could work. The panic subsided as she once again began to undertake the task of braiding her hair. It was soon replaced with anger however as the brush quickly proved itself ineffectual. It would either slide out of the place she wanted it to be or get tangled in the hair it was meant to hold. After a few rounds, the brush became particularly snarled within her hair. Prisha tried to pry it out gently, then grew angry, swinging her hair back and forth. Her crippled arm immediately retaliated with an absolutely debilitating pain, causing Prisha to cry out and crumple in half from the pain. The brush clanged against the metal bedpost and fell uselessly to the ground.

“Prisha? Are you OK?”

She heard the door open and immediately straightened up, casting a venomous glare at the treacherous brush. The corners of her eyes stung with tears she was too furious to shed.

“What’s wrong?”

It was Violet’s voice. She was the one who had carried Prisha back to the school, the girl who had saved her life. For her to come at this of all times was utterly humiliating. Prisha let out a harsh sigh. “I asked Ruby for a brush since after three weeks in a braid my hair looks like it belongs to a mongoose. Silly me though, I forgot that I would need two hands to rebraid my hair, just like I need two fucking hands for everything in this goddamn world!” Prisha felt her chest heaving as her emotions swelled. Damnit, she couldn’t let herself fall apart now!

“Y’know what? I can braid your hair. I may not know a fucking thing about hair care, but it’s just a braid, right?” Violet bent down to pick up the brush. “You can sit down on the chair or the bed and I’ll get it done,”

Prisha felt dazed. In the midst of all the chaos, she’d been repressing her emotions for weeks now. Having them all come out at once like this was proving taxing. Shakily, she nodded then sat down on the bed facing the closet, pulling her legs up against her chest and wrapping her right arm around them, her left cradled uselessly by her side. She had to make sure she didn’t jostle it.  
One more bout of pain might be too much for her to manage.

She could hear Violet crawl on top of the mattress and sit behind her. To greet that childish outburst with an offer of help… these Ericson survivors really were something else. In all her years on the road, Prisha had only met a handful of people who would offer a stranger a hand. They tended to be those who’d been denied the same kindness in the past and did not wish that suffering to fall on another. From the burn marks on Violet’s face, Prisha wondered if the same story held true for her.

Violet hadn’t moved yet. “Umm, remind me of the first step,”

Prisha felt a smile weakly tug at her lips. _Of course the art of braiding’s been lost with the apocalypse. Everyone else had the sense to cut their hair short._ “You need to separate my hair into three equal sections,”

“Right,” She could feel Violet touching her hair, so gently it almost felt like she wasn’t there. Prisha wondered if Violet was worried about hurting her. Considering that the purplish bruising of her arm travelled far above her bandages, it was a valid concern. Violet was certainly gentler than Prisha than she’d been with herself in her efforts to untangle her hair.

Violet had stilled again.

“Do you need the next step?”

“Uh, yeah,”

“Start with the section on the left side and cross it over the middle section. Then take the right section and cross it the other way, then bring the middle section over. Then just keep repeating those motions,”

“Alright. Here goes nothing,”

It was sweet of Violet to be attempting something she was clearly uncomfortable with. Prisha could hear her whisper a cuss as one section of her hair slipped out of her grasp. She was such a fascinating person. Prisha hadn’t thought much of her in the months since their first meeting, but the same traits that had stood out in Violet then were present here as well: tenacity and tenderheartedness. The two qualities tended to be mutually exclusive after the world ended. Either you were soft and died or you were hard and survived. It was exceedingly rare for someone to embody both within themselves.

Prisha suddenly realized how quite she was being. She’d been so drawn into the peacefulness of the moment she hadn’t considered that her terseness might be unsettling. Awkwardly, she cleared her throat. “Did you used to have longer hair… before?”

“When I was little. My grandma used to put it in braids whenever she took me to church. I hated it,” Violet paused and quickly back tracked. “Not that braids are bad! Just on me. She did them so tight,”

It was cute how quickly she’d corrected herself. As if anyone had time to be offended by braiding preferences in the apocalypse. “My mother braided my hair when I was little, but she taught me how to do it myself from a pretty young age. She said that braided hair was a sign of dignity for a woman.” Prisha reached up a hand, fiddling with a stray strand by her face. “I know it would be more practical for me to cut it, but something just stops me each time I consider it. Who knows. Maybe it’s just my way of saying fuck the walkers and fuck this entire shitty world. They can take a lot from me, but how I do my hair is still my own fucking choice. I may not control what I eat or where I sleep or…” She took a shaky breath. “Or the well-being of my own body, but dammnit, I still have my hair,” _Damn, way to monologue, Prisha._

“That’s sorta badass,”

Prisha snorted. “Thanks, I guess. Everything’s going to shit and here I am being Indian Rapunzel,”

“It works on you,”

“Thanks,” Prisha felt a bit of warmth growing in her chest at the reiterated compliment. Violet didn’t strike her as the type to give compliments lightly. She should know better than to brush her words off. Prisha turned slightly so she could look back at Violet who was earnestly focusing on the braiding process. “You know, I can see why you hated them. The braids, I mean. Your hair looks good short,”

“If by ‘good’ you mean ‘looks like some hay that a cow shit on’ then yeah, I guess it looks good,”

Prisha scoffed. “No, it’s not like that at all. It looks like… y’know that tall grass that grows beside rivers? The kind with those wheat kernels on the end that you can’t eat? Then autumn comes and they turn this warm, light gold tone and just sway back and forth in the breeze…. Your hair is like that,”

 _Shit, that sounded super gay._ She hoped she hadn’t just freaked Violet out.

“Your braid is done,” Violet draped it over Prisha’s right shoulder.

“Thank you,” Prisha said, fiddling with the tail end of the braid. _Not bad at all for a first attempt._ “You got it perfect. Not too tight,” She turned around on the bed, leaning against the wall. “Sorry you had to come into the middle of my tantrum. Was there something you needed from me?”

“Dishes,” Violet answered abruptly. “Omar wanted me to bring your dishes down if you were done with them,”

“Oh, yes, of course. Could you tell him thank you for me? His cooking is seriously amazing. The best I’ve had in years,”

“He’ll be happy to hear that,” Violet reached out to grab the small pile of dishes, moving backwards toward the door. “I’ll leave so you can sleep now,”

 _Dang it._ She shouldn’t have asked Violet what she came in for. “Alright. And Violet?”

“Yeah?”

Prisha found herself looking out of the boarded-up window, unable to meet the eyes of the girl who’d just helped her for fear of her voice cracking with emotion as she spoke. “Thank you. For dropping by. It helped,”

“Anytime,”

With that, Violet was out the door and Prisha was alone again. Well, there wasn’t anything else to be done tonight. Her hair was fixed and the tension in her body had finally dissipated enough that she felt she could sleep. Blowing out the candle by her bedside, Prisha lay down on her bed. Her future was still unclear, a fact that terrified her to her very core. But for the first time since she’d lost the use of her arm, lost her group, lost everything… for a few minutes things had been pleasant. Perhaps all was not lost just yet. She needed to stay practical and be prepared for the worst, but the people at Ericson hadn’t kicked her out yet. Maybe, just maybe they wouldn’t?

It was too much to think of right now. With a sigh, Prisha closed her eyes, waiting for sleep to take her. She was glad that Violet had dropped by tonight. She’d given Prisha something she thought she had lost: the comfort of knowing she was not alone.


End file.
